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[Sphecomyrmex]

Help me,

My Messor structor are infested by small fly larvae. The workers' bodies are covered by these small larvae, look-like bumps
How can I exterminate these parasites?

[JimmyVe]

That is really hard to do. Can you take them off with a tweezer ?

[derameisige]

Hi Sphecomyrmex,

I guess that it's mites, not fly larvae (maggots). Look here: Hyperlinks sind nur für registrierte Nutzer sichtbar
The pictures show Messor with serious mite infestation.
I don't know any reliable means, however, to remove them. Usually it's best to kill such ants together with the mites in boiling water. This prevents spreading of the mites to other ants (perhaps you have more colonies?).

derameisige

[Sphecomyrmex]

Hi,
Thank you very much, i thought fly larvae because i seen some small flies, but seeing the photos I'm sure they're mites, now.

The colony is 100-200 workers big. I've captured it from a bigger supercolony in nature (with thousands of queens), and i think all the supercolony is infested by mites. Fortunately mites are above all on major workers (gynes and minor have less mites), then i'll try to clean some major with tweezers. I haven't got other Messor colonies, then i'ld want avoid to bubble them.

[Sphecomyrmex]

I've tried to submerge some worker in fresh water and fortunately mites detached from the body, while ants are still living. So i could clean these workers without kill them.
But there is an enourmous amound of mites, in the loam and on grains too (these ones are white while the ones that live on the ant bodies are broun).

I've thought to use some insecticides (natural insecticides, may be) that kill mites but no ants...What about lemon juice? Could i try to pour some drops of lemon juice into the jar that contains the colony, or it's could be dangerous for ants?

[shovel]

you need to get hold of a few little arachnids called pseudoscorpions. they will live in harmony with your colony and survive by eating mites. they are quite hard to find in the wild because they are very small (only 3 or 4mm in length) but you can buy them from bugsincyberspace.com. hope this helps.

[Markus]

That's one year ago...

[shovel]